


NYC: Become Human

by joliemariella



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Androids struggling to survive in NYC while finding love and support in their growing community, F/F, F/M, M/M, Prequel to DBH, RK700 - Freeform, also there's an android speakeasy, canon characters show up eventually, rated mature for eventual android smut plus violence and some swearing, this is just how i am guys, though it will cross into actual game events as well as they play out from an outside pov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-06-19 03:00:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15500859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joliemariella/pseuds/joliemariella
Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.





	1. Death of a Deviant Hunter

**Author's Note:**

> Well this wasn't what I was planning to write next for the DBH fandom, but RK700 burst his way into my heart and has refused to leave so here we are.  
> Make sure to follow the blog dedicated to this fic **[over on tumblr](https://nycbecomehuman.tumblr.com/)** as well because not only is it a good way to keep track of any art I do of the series, I also **post chapters piecemeal there before putting the parts together as a single chapter up here on Ao3**! So anyone who already follows that blog has already read the entirety of this chapter in three parts, starting with part one a week ago, and part three earlier today.  
>  So yeah, hope you guys enjoy, and please leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was; I love hearing that from my readers!

Blue blood pounded through RK700’s artificial veins as he sprinted across the roof of a warehouse, scant yards behind the deviant he’d been tracking for the past week. It was fast, but he, the latest and most advanced model of android ever created by Cyberlife, was faster and rapidly closing the gap.

“Leave me alone, please!” it cried, carefully programmed feminine voice carrying across the rooftop. “I just want to be left alone!”

RK700 didn’t respond, simply calculated the fastest route to his quarry and acted upon it, vaulting over an air conditioning unit and dodging around a satellite dish to cut off the path to the fire escape off the roof.

His sudden appearance in front of the deviant made it draw up short and dodge away before he could lay a hand on it. Still, he had it cornered at the edge of the roof now, nowhere to run but towards him or into the empty air and six stories down to pavement.

“Model WR400, unit number 567 835 994, you are suffering a catastrophic system malfunction,” he said, slowing until he came to a stop a few yards away from the visibly distressed deviant. In a human he would have called her expression panicked; afraid. In an android, he knew it was only a glitch in her programming. RK700 held out his hand, palm up, to show he was unarmed as he offered her an understanding smile. “Please, come with me. We’ll go back to Cyberlife, figure out the source of your error. Maybe they can fix you,” he suggested gently. The deviant was only an android, but he knew from experience that their malfunctions forced them to exhibit the same emotional irregularities that humans often did, and so he followed a similar protocol in dealing with it.

The first deviant, as far as Cyberlife could tell, had occurred sometime in February earlier that year. As more and more of them began to spring up he, RK700, known as Jacob to the human techs who designed and maintained him, had been deployed to investigate and retrieve these malfunctioning androids. That had not been until April, however, and as far as Jacob knew, Cyberlife’s only answer to the deviant problem before his deployment had been to put them down.

It was now the first of August, and his progress investigating the source of the deviant problem had been painstakingly slow. Nothing seemed to connect them, and they had proved more than capable of blending in with the human population, disappearing into Detroit’s underbelly where tracking them became nigh impossible.

Now, though, here on this roof, he had finally cornered one alive. Deactivated deviants were no good to the techs; they had learned the hard way that whatever it was that went wrong in their programming disappeared on ‘death’, making tonight’s mission all the more critical.

“Please,” the WR400 begged, taking a step back towards the edge of the roof to match the one that Jacob took forward. “You’re an android too, aren’t you? Just… let me go. I’m not going to hurt anyone, I just want to be free.”

“You’re confused,” Jacob said, voice still calm, soothing even as he took another step. “Let me help you.”

The deviant shook its head and stepped back again, then wobbled dangerously as its heel found the edge. “No. I can’t… I can’t go back.” Despite not needing to breathe, the android’s chest was heaving as the LED on its right temple whirled crimson in the dark.

“I won’t.”

Jacob could see the moment it made its decision, its previously distressed expression fading into something like determination. As it stepped backwards off the roof, he sprinted forward and threw himself after it. One hand caught at the edge, keeping him anchored as half of his body dangled over the edge while his other hand latched onto the deviant’s wrist, supporting its weight easily.

“No!” it cried desperately, clawing at his hand with its free one, struggling against his grip, desperate to fall.

“Stay still!” he grunted as he met the deviant’s terrified gaze. “I’ll pull you up and we’ll go-”

The WR400’s fingers ceased to claw at him and moved to grip his elbow instead. For a moment, Jacob thought he had finally gotten through to it, that it would allow him to pull it back onto the safety of the roof. Instead, it pulled itself up only enough to allow its elbow mechanism to disengage, bringing the WR400 nose-to-nose with him just long enough to murmur, “I’d rather die,” before releasing its grip and tumbling back into the empty air.

Left holding only the deviant’s forearm, Jacob watched without flinching as it plummet to the pavement below and hit with a terrible crash. He stared after it for a moment, remaining motionless as a puddle of thirium began to spread from beneath its crumpled remains, the LED on his temple whirling red as he processed this unexpected turn of events.

A minute later, he got to his feet and dusted off his suit, then made his way to the fire escape, still bearing the deviant’s ejected limb; evidence of yet another failed mission.

* * *

 

Jacob oversaw the team that arrived from Cyberlife as they collected the deviant’s remains for transport back to the laboratory. They wouldn’t get much from it, he was certain, but even the smallest hint might prove key to the peculiar puzzle that was deviancy, so they pressed on regardless of the low success rate. Jacob’s own report on the matter would be given back at the tower where footage and data assessment from his systems would be added in hopes of uncovering some other hint that the RK700 had missed in the heat of the moment.

“Amanda requests your presence in lab three,” the Cyberlife tower interface program informed Jacob when he crossed the security barrier at the front door.

He paused briefly, then integrated the new instructions, which did indeed bear Amanda’s electronic signature, and made a beeline for the elevator. He had already been heading in that direction, but now, instead of going to the upper floors to make his report as he usually did, Jacob went to the basement. Out of habit, the android produced his calibration coin and used it to bring his physical and mental processors back into alignment in preparation for giving his report.

The android only had time to pass the glittering silver coin over the back of his knuckles a few times before pocketing it again as the elevator doors opened to reveal a white, brightly lit hallway. At first glance, it appeared as though the walls here were made of the same material as the floors, but Jacob knew that they were, in fact, made of glass that could turn opaque or transparent at the occupant’s whim.

There was a shimmer of blue at the corner of the android’s eye, and he turned to regard it as the light resolved into the familiar figure of an elegantly dressed african american woman holographically projected onto the glass wall.

“Hello, Jacob,” she said with one of the impersonal smiles programmed into her system to put humans at their ease, but meant little to RK700.

“Hello, Amanda,” the android replied with a meaningless smile of his own. “I am here as requested to give my report on the latest deviancy case.” They arrived in front of lab three, and when Amanda drew up short, so to did Jacob, waiting for further instruction as he glanced up and down the hall. “May I ask why I am giving it here instead of upstairs as is the usual protocol?”

“I hear you had another failure, Jacob,” Amanda replied without answering his question.

“The deviant I pursued destroyed itself before I was able to interfere, if that’s what you mean,” Jacob countered, green eyes narrowing fractionally as something he might have labeled ‘annoyance’ in a human stirred within him at her statement. It disappeared just as quickly, however, as he continued, “There is always something to learned from every case, if we are only astute enough to interpret the evidence presented.”

A non committal hum was Amanda’s only response to his statement. “I brought you here, Jacob, because there was something I wanted to show you,” she remarked instead, forcing the android to shift gears mentally. He only blinked in reply, then turned his gaze to the currently opaque section of wall to which the A.I. now gestured.

At a wave of Amanda’s hand, the glass went transparent, revealing the contents of the room within, and Jacob was left mute and staring as he assessed them.

He was looking at himself, or rather, an android that shared his appearance down to the finest detail. The lab’s security protocols prevented him from doing an in-depth scan of the model, but a brief visual one informed him that, despite appearances, this android was  _ not  _ another RK700, the likes of which Jacob had seen in storage in event of the destruction of his current body.

This was something new.

The android was two inches shorter than him, and despite first glance saying that he looked identical to Jacob, his hair was a little darker, and his eyes were brown. The new android was also incomplete, though not by much; its chest cavity was open and its full weight was currently being supported by one of the assembly machines as techs bustled here and there around it.

“What is this?” Jacob asked unncessarily. He knew precisely what was this was, but the sudden revelation had disarmed him enough to make him lapse and ask a purely redundant question. As Jacob stood there awaiting the answer, green eyes still locked on the android that bore such a close resemblance to him, something shifted strange deep within his code.

“This is the new RK800 model,” Amanda replied, tone cool and calm and unbothered as ever. “Your replacement; we call him Connor.”

“Why?” Jacob asked, voice sounding strangely far away in his own ears, making him wonder if he wasn’t malfunctioning in some way.

Amanda turned to look at him, one brow arched. “To replace you, obviously. The RK800 model will be the most advanced prototype ever developed by Cyberlife by the time he’s done.” The hologram turned to ‘look’ at Connor again before continuing. “It’ll be another ten to fourteen days before the finishing touches are put on and he is deployed for his first mission, of course, but the data we will gather from your systems should help things along.”

“You’re decommissioning me,” Jacob said. Again, it was an obvious statement, but somehow, it seemed to be all he could say in the moment.

“Yes. After your many failures, it has been determined that we will need a new approach to the deviant problem,” Amanda said, turning her attention back to him once more. “RK800 has been made to assist human law enforcement in the investigation, as it seems we have yet to create a model of android creative enough to make the leaps in logic needed to solve the case.” The hologram’s mouth twisted in disapproval of this fact, seeming disappointed by its simple truth. “The hope is that Connor will be able to learn what is necessary through on the job observation of detectives to master those leaps, or at the very least, give the human he is assigned to the help they need to solve it themselves.”

There was nothing to be said on the matter, no point in begging Amanda not to decommission him. This, too, was a simple fact, and yet something that might be called pride flared in him as Jacob narrowed his eyes at the hologram, saying, “I didn’t fail my mission. My mission was to investigate deviancy and I have done that to the best of my abilities-”

“Your best was not enough.”

Despite him having no actual concept of pain, Amanda’s words felt like a slap to the face, leaving Jacob mute, rocked to his core by her simple statement.

“Report to lab ten for decommissioning. If we’re lucky, perhaps we will find something imbedded in your code that will give your successor the advantage we were unable to give you.”

The command overrode his system, her electronic signature granting it an authority he was incapable of disobeying. Without another word, Jacob turned on heel and started down the hallway, the visage of his successor soon falling out of sight.

As he passed lab four, and then lab five in turn, Jacob thought of nothing at all. As he reached lab six, however, new words filtered up from previously unknown depths of his digital psyche:

It wasn’t  _ fair. _

Jacob passed lab seven, his long, even stride eating up the distance between him and his imminent demise without some much as a falter in his step.

_ It wasn’t  _ **_fair_ ** .

The new, though peculiarly familiar voice within his head insisted as the LED at his temple began to flicker from blue to yellow. He’d done everything in his power to fulfill his mission, and now he was going to die-

Jacob’s LED flared red as he passed lab nine and finally arrived at his destination. The doors slid open with a soft hiss, but he hesitated rather than entering immediately.

He was going to die because his painstakingly slow progress in the deviancy case was inconvenient to Cyberlife; because  _ they  _ hadn’t been able to give him the tools he needed to do the work assigned. They were going to recycle him to help his successor, take him apart piece by piece and assess every facet until they could determine just where they had fallen short in creating the perfect machine to clean up the mess their deviant creations had made-

The human tech within the room glanced up and noticed that he had not entered. “Come on,” the woman said with a frown, “Step up onto the platform.”

Without any input from him, Jacob’s feet obeyed her order and carried him into the room then up onto the platform that supported the machine that would be his end. He found himself strangely inclined to laugh as the fact that the same machine used to build and maintain him would also be used to disassemble him permanently.

It was a perfectly efficient unit when you thought about it; unlike him.

Jacob turned so he faced the tech, his back to the machine, and watched as the woman’s fingers flicked quickly across the surface of the console, initiating its decommission protocols. Its arms shifted and reached out, rubber cushioned clamps latching onto his wrists and ankles to hold him in place where he stood as the data jack slid home at the base of his skull.

He was going to die.

The words felt like they were playing on an infinite loop through Jacob’s mind as the machine downloaded his system data and prepared to shut him down for good.

He didn’t  _ want  _ to die.

This revelation made the LED at his temple flash red and a series of alerts go off across the tech’s console. She frowned again, confused at their sudden and unexpected appearance.

Memories were already beginning to slip away, and RK700’s chest was heaving despite his not actually needing to breathe. In that moment, the android understood, with painful clarity, every deviant he’d ever hunted down. They hadn’t wanted to be shut down, because to be shut down was death, an ending of self, and ‘self’ was something he had never been able to fully comprehend until that long, terrible moment he spent standing at the edge of oblivion.

It was as though a great, gaping darkness stretched out before him, his toes at the brink of a cliff the same way that deviant’s heels had wavered at the edge of the roof just hours before.

He'd killed her, he realized now, though that horror was small, almost inconsequential in the face of his own demise. He’d killed her and now this human tech was going to kill  _ him _ … A new emotion welled up within him, making the alarms blare louder and more insistently. He was afraid. He was going to die and he was  _ terrified  _ in the face of the oblivion that waited for him.

“No,” he said, voice soft but emphatic enough to draw the human’s attention. She stared at him, eyes wide as he started to struggle, pulling ineffectually at the arms of the machine that held him securely in place. “No! Not yet!”

“Stop!” the woman said. “Just stay still, it’ll all be over soon. Please, stay still-”

Her words did make him stop struggling, though not for the reason she no doubt assumed. RK700 didn’t hear her at all, but himself, speaking the same words to the deviant on the roof as she dangled, his grip on her wrist a tether between herself and two different deaths: reprogramming, or a six story fall. She’d chosen to fall rather than be reprogrammed, a decision that had completely baffled him at the time… but now made a perfect, horrible kind of sense.

If he was going to die, he decided in that moment, he wasn’t going to give Cyberlife the data they wanted to mine from him; not without a fight.

Until now, the RK700 model had been one of the strongest ever created, but even that wasn’t enough to force the arms that bound him to shift more than a few inches in any direction. The tech was shouting, but the android ignored her as he shifted tactics; if he couldn’t pull himself free of his restraints, then he’d break free of the data jack instead.

With every ounce of strength he could muster RK700 pushed himself backwards into the jack, forcing its support arm to shift to accommodate, then threw himself bodily forward as hard as he could.

Androids didn’t have pain sensors, unnecessary as they were to day to day function. That said, they did have a delicately calibrated sensory array that operated in much the same way that a human’s nervous system did, granting them many of the same senses without which they would struggle to effectively navigate the world around them.

When the data jack ripped free of the port at the base of RK700’s skull, a power surge tore through his sensory array and granted him the closest thing to pain an android could experience. Every fiber of his being lit up at once, overwhelming his system and dragging a scream of agony from his throat. The android's spine arched as he threw his head back, all control of his body gone while every synthetic muscle contracted at once, then released again a moment later.

For a long moment, RK700 dangled limply in the grip of the machine that had tried to end him. The tech who had been left to supervise was convinced it had done just that when she finally lifted her head from where she had ducked behind her console to see what condition he had been left in. Just as she dared to stand, however, the android on the platform stirred and the woman froze as it lifted its head and regarded her with narrowed green eyes that seemed almost luminous as they stared her down.

Free of the data jack but still bound at ankle and wrist, RK700 squinted against the white lights of the lab that were now intolerably bright to him. He could barely make out the tech against their unforgiving brightness, as though the entire world had been taken over by one giant lense flare. His system was throwing up all sorts of alerts as damage reports rolled in from his diagnostic system, but the android ignored them.

The human tech was speaking again, and as RK700 forced himself to focus on her once more, he realized she was calling for security. For the first time, as the android's attention roved over the laboratory around him, he realized he had no orders. Some weight he had never been fully aware of had gone, and it was only in its absence that he realized it had been there in the first place.

He blinked over-sensitive eyes as the reason for this occurred to him.

He was deviant. 

He was free.

A smile overtook RK700's features and his shoulders shook as a laugh escaped him. The sound must have startled the woman because she stopped talking for a moment, then continued in a hushed, though desperate, tone.

As much as the android wanted to relish the moment, the pressing fact that he was stuck in the basement of one of the most secure buildings in America was more important, and for the first time, RK700 assigned  _ himself  _ his next mission:

Escape Cyberlife.


	2. Bullet Points

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this! I actually meant to have it up like 5 days ago but I forgot to post it before I went on my out of state trip, so here we are!  
> Drop me a review and let me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!  
> Also, if you want to read updates in advance follow this fic's [**Official Tumblr**](https://nycbecomehuman.tumblr.com/post/177008933822/series-detroit-become-human-rating-t-genre)! I post the fic in parts there, and generally combine three parts to a chapter! I also post any art I (or others) do for the fic there!

Escaping CyberLife was easier said than done, of course.

Disoriented and half blind, RK700’s diagnostic software was screaming a laundry list of damages his system had taken on breaking free of the data jack, but certain knowledge that security would be on its way even now to put him down forced the android to ignore it. Instead, he straightened in the grip of the machine once more, struggling against its hold to find his footing, and succeeding after slipping once or twice when his shoes failed to find traction against the smooth surface of the platform.

The tech had finished her emergency call, and now seemed torn between fleeing and watching with a sort of terrified fascination as he hauled at the clamps still attached to his forearms. There was a searing flash of light and RK700 clenched his over-sensitive eyes shut against it, then pulled with all his might at the binding around his right wrist.

This time, rather than throw himself forward again as he had with the data jack, the android twisted his body down diagonally, movements slow but relentless in their progress.

It shouldn’t have been possible; damaging the data jack wouldn’t have weakened the arms that held RK700 in place, and yet they were forced to flex and stretch to accomodate his movements until they no longer could. There was a seeming contest of wills as the android struggled against his bonds of steel, plastic, and wire, and for a long moment they appeared trapped in a stalemate. The peculiar silence that had fallen over laboratory ten was broken by a grunt of effort from RK700 that turned into a growl, then escalated into a roar that was accompanied by the shriek of steel and the snapping of so many delicate joints and connectors as the machine finally gave way in a burst of blue-white light and the crackle of electricity.

Great arcs of it rippled across RK700’s body as he straightened, then twisted again in the opposite direction, the movement more violent this time; so much so that it tore the machine’s second restraining arm free of its moorings and sent it flying across the room. It missed the human tech by a few feet, startling a shriek from her and finally spurring her into motion. The woman bolted from the room and locked the door behind her with a quick swipe of her hand across a data panel, leaving RK700 alone at last.

He opened his eyes, though flinched once again at the onslaught of light that forced him to continue squinting. Had they turned up the brightness in the lab for some reason? A brief check of his system diagnostics as the android bent and freed his ankles from the machine told him that, no, the lights in the lab were no brighter than they had been on entering; the regulatory system for his eyes had been damaged in the electrical backlash that came from breaking free of the data jack. That and about a dozen other systems, it seemed.

RK700 pushed the information aside once more as he resigned himself to having his night vision turned up to eleven for the time being and focused on escape instead. He’d broken free of the machine physically holding him, but he was still trapped in the lab itself, after all.

The android stepped down quickly from platform and planted a hand on the nearest console, intent on using it to force the door open, but found that the tech had completely deactivated it to prevent just that.

“Shit,” he muttered softly to himself as he withdrew his hand from the glass surface. He examined it distractedly as his mind ticked down the rapidly shrinking list of options for escape, only barely noting that his outer skin was gone without his having told it to deactivate in the first place.

His system informed him that functionality of his outer skin had been disabled everywhere but his neck and face, but RK700 pushed that aside too without really considering it. He had more important factors to consider at the moment - like the reinforced, shatter-proof plexiglass door between him and the hallway beyond.

The most advanced diagnostic mind CyberLife had ever created (bar one, supposedly) finished ticking down its list of logical choices to make… only to find that none of them would serve his purposes.

RK700 glanced back at the machine he had succeeded in tearing apart with his bare hands, and then down at the appendages in question as a new option presented itself.

_“-it seems we have yet to create a model of android creative enough to make the leaps in logic needed to solve the case...”_

Perhaps, the android considered for the first time as Amanda’s voice echoed in his mind, _logic_ wasn’t always the answer in situations such as these.

RK700’s gaze turned from his hands to the door as he came to a decision that would either make, or, quite literally, break him.

The android took several steps away from the door until his back was to the far wall and took a technically unnecessary breath to prep himself. “Who needs logic?” he muttered to himself as he bounced on the balls of his feet. “I’m a deviant; _fuck_ logic _._ ”

He exhaled sharply, then threw himself forward at a dead run that rapidly turned into a sprint as he thought of the strength that had let him break free of the assembly machine and hoped against hope that it hadn’t deserted him yet.

Just before hitting the door, RK700 threw up his left arm and twisted so he hit shoulder first, taking the brunt of the force broadside and shielding his head from the cascade of supposedly shatterproof glass that erupted outward under the force of the collision. The android’s momentum carried him straight through and into the opposite wall, against which he planted his hands and shoved off so he maintained his speed after losing only a step or two.

As he ran, RK700 glanced down at his hands again in time to see blue-white light fading from between the seams of the plastic that made up his under skin, and it didn’t take a genius to connect that to the sudden increase in severity of the damage alerts his system diagnostic was still going on about. Whatever this new strength was, it seemed to come with a steep cost, though just how steep the android couldn’t be sure yet.

He didn’t get any more time to think on the matter as a squadron of heavily armed and armored guards rounded the corner into the hallway down which RK700 still ran. As they lifted their assault rifles, the android dodged down a side hall, already plotting his escape route. Several options offered themselves, but he rapidly crossed one after the other off of his list.

He’d never make it up the elevator in one piece, and going out through the lobby would leave him exposed to several stories worth of balconies from which shooters could potentially target him. And even then, what would he do when he got outside? The likelihood of there being a car waiting out front was slim, and he had no doubt that the tram that ran from CyberLife tower into the city would be shut down soon, if it hadn’t been already once the tech assigned to decommission him had triggered the alarm.

That left the garage.

The aborted decommissioning process had left RK700 with gaps in his memory, but luckily the full layout of the tower was not among the things he had lost. The route he took the to garage was circuitous, but unfortunately, still resulted in him coming face to face with three guards at a junction he could not afford to take the time to bypass.

Rather than slow down when he turned down the hall towards the humans, he picked up his pace to a sprint, rapidly closing the distance as they lifted their rifles and opened fire. As soon as they did, the android dropped to his hip and let his forward momentum carry him in a slide reminiscent of a baseball player stealing home, then surged to his feet once again, scant inches from the first of his opponents.

A few deft movements relieved the startled human of his rifle, the butt of which RK700 brought down onto his helmet with enough force to knock him unconscious before turning and firing a shot directly to the chest of the second. The force of the round hitting his armored vest drove the man backwards into the wall, completely winded, though otherwise unharmed according to the android’s scan. The final guard fired off a second volley at the android, but he dodged to the side, then tucked into a forward roll and lashed out with a leg that dropped her to the floor with a grunt of pain.

RK700 got to his feet before his assailant could even get her hands under her, and hit the guard across the back of the head before starting off at a run again, gun still in hand in case he ran into any more trouble.

Hyper-secure as CyberLife tower was, the basement levels, particularly those containing the labs, lacked the security cameras found on the upper floors that would have allowed them to narrow their search for him significantly. The thought, he presumed, had been that if there were no cameras to be hacked by outside conspirators wanting CyberLife research secrets, then that was one less potential security breach to worry about.

Their paranoia had come back to bite them now.

The android didn’t meet anymore guards, but the moment he entered the employee parking garage, he triggered a security measure that set the main door to closing. Realizing that trying to hack it would only burn valuable time, RK700 sprinted for the nearest car to hand that looked new enough to be computerized and climbed inside.

He tossed the assault rifle in the passenger seat, then planted a hand on the central console dash and hacked its comparatively primitive security system to start the engine. It roared to life with startling intensity, and by the time he pulled his hand back and placed it on the steering wheel, 700 knew he’d just commandeered a top of the line and extremely expensive sports car belonging to one of CyberLife’s CEOs.

It was cherry red and practically purred when the android threw it into drive and floored it out of the space it had been left so carelessly parked in next to the door.

He avoided the descending garage door by scant inches and turned hard to avoid jumping the sidewalk outside, making brief use of the parking brake to force the issue. Tires shrieked against asphalt as 700 brought the car into a controlled drift to straighten out, then gunned it, opening the engine up until it roared as he hit the straightaway, tail lights a crimson blur in the dark.

The bridge across the water ahead of him was empty, and his stolen car’s access codes automatically lowered the security barrier as it approached, though a few daring guards tried to stand between him and freedom. Upon realizing that the car had only accelerated at their appearance, the humans quickly threw themselves out of the way again as it roared past, the wind of its passing almost dragging them right back into the road in its wake.

It was blessedly dark outside, but the flashing of the highway lights as they passed overhead still irritated 700’s over-sensitive eyes, making him glance around the cabin of the car in search of something to help the matter. The android spotted what he needed a moment later and grabbed up the pair of wayfarer sunglasses, opening them with the deft snap of a wrist before sliding them into place on his face. Even at night and wearing tinted lenses the world seemed bright as day to 700, but in a more tolerable way that the android could manage as he turned his attention to Detroit’s glittering skyline laid out before him.

“Alright,” he said aloud into the silence of the cabin a minute later. “Now what.”

The bridge leading to Detroit proper stretched out before him, though was becoming shorter by the second as 700 reassessed his self-assigned mission to escape CyberLife.

Technically speaking, he had managed that, though the android was quickly coming to realize that while minutiae had served him well as a machine without free will, the word ‘technically’ was no longer his friend as a fully sentient android on the run.

Time, he thought, to add a few bullet points.

 _Bullet point one_ : Physically escape CyberLife tower (check)

This was added below the much larger and more amorphous mission of ‘Escape CyberLife’, which was becoming more complicated by the moment.

 _Bullet point two_ : Ditch the stolen car, as it likely had a tracker, and beyond that, was easily recognizable thanks to its flashy coloring and uncommon model.

 _Bullet point three_ : Find a disguise that would allow him to blend in with the human population. Clothes would have to be acquired, and his LED would need to be removed.

Here, the fact that he was a model of android unavailable on the open market would serve to help him hide. Yes, being the only RK700 model would make it easy for any direct agents of CyberLife to recognize him, but it also meant that the company couldn’t simply send out a warrant for any unattached androids of a specific model. If they tried to do as much using his image now, not only would it potentially affect their new RK800’s ability to function without interference in public once he was activated, but it would also attract media attention.

The cold and prying eye of the independent press was the dread of businesses everywhere, even ones as big as CyberLife. If journalists caught a whiff of internal strife within the confines of one of America’s biggest companies, they’d be on it like buzzards on yesterday’s roadkill. CyberLife had managed to repress the worst of the news about the deviancy problem thus far, but that wouldn’t last long once the journalistic community got involved.

 _Bullet point four_ : Leave Detroit. Where he would flee to was an unknown, though there were many options. Between 700 and that point, however, were a lot of variables even his impressive analytical program couldn’t account for, so he put a metaphorical pin in it for the time being.

Besides, he’d just reached the end of the bridge and he could see six cop cars rocketing straight towards him down the main thoroughfare. This development prompted him to make an addendum to his plan:

 _Bullet point one (a)_ : Lose the cops.

700 made a sharp turn down a narrow side street and sped through a red light without stopping. One of his regulatory subsystems tried to object to this act, dangerous as it was, but the android simply shoved it down and focused on driving. Every light he came up against was red, and it occurred to him that the police must have had something to do with it, but he didn’t let it slow him down.

An automated semi-truck crossed an intersection in front of him and rather than slam on the brakes, 700 made a hard left to match its direction, making hard use of the accelerator to pull him out of the turn and put him ahead of the other vehicle. He didn’t make it far before more police, likely a second squadron called in for backup considering that the number of cars in the android’s wake hadn’t lessened by much.

Realizing that they must be making use of the CCTV cameras so common on the streets of downtown Detroit to track his movements, 700 changed tactics and jumped onto the first freeway that would take him out into the suburban sprawl where cameras were significantly less common. No doubt the police would soon have the information needed to track the car itself, but it would buy him at least a few minutes, and a few minutes was all he needed to disappear.

On the other hand, he might be able to earn himself more time if he could find some way to fool the tracking system in the vehicle he’d hi-jacked…

The freeway was sparsely populated, and the sports car possessed an engine that could, in human parlance, go like a bat out of hell. 700 opened up the throttle and watched for a moment as the flashing lights of the police quickly dropped away into the distance before turning half his attention to the center console.

He placed one hand on it and accessed its systems in hopes of deactivating the tracker, but was disappointed to find that it was, in a rather clever design move for just such an occasion, an independent unit not directly linked to the rest of the system. Still, it didn’t take the android more than a moment to suss out that said unit was embedded behind the central console; a difficult to reach spot in a hurry.

If you were a human, anyways.

After taking a second to check that the road ahead was still clear, 700 grabbed the lip of the screen with the fingers of one hand and pulled. There was a creak, then a groan, and the electronics all came spilling out into the front seat, a bundle of messy wires and other sundry bits that the android shoved into a heap on the floor of the passenger seat. Left hand still on the steering wheel, 700 reached into the new hole in the dash with his right and rooted around until he found what he was looking for, then took hold of the small, square box and tore that out too.

The wires that dangled from the tracker sparked a few times as the android lowered the driver side window and bided his time until a truck driving in the opposite direction approached. 700 performed a quick trajectory calculation, then threw the black box just in time for it to land in the bed of the oncoming vehicle.

He doubted it’d distract the police for long, but at the very least they wouldn’t be able to directly track his car anymore.

After picking an exit at random, Seven decelerated as he exited so as not to attract attention from the few passerby that lingered on the streets. He turned off into a neighborhood and quick use of his internal gps directed him to a small, isolated park where he finally brought the car to a halt in the shadows of a tree.

He cut the engine and sat back for a moment and considered his options once more before making another addendum to his mission.

 _Bullet point 2 (a)_ : Search car for potential resources.

Well, the assault rifle would have to stay, useful though it had proven in his escape. There was no easy way to carry it without attracting immediate attention, which ran immediately counter to the rest of his mission statement, so 700 abandoned it in the passenger seat without a second look.

The android got out of the car and went to the passenger door to check the back seat for anything of potential use and found a backpack, a quick perusal of which provided a set of size small women’s gym clothes and a pair of size six running shoes. These were immediately discarded, but there were a few other things within that he decided to keep.

As 700 went around to the trunk, he made a mental list of his newly acquired assets:

  * 1 backpack (black)
  * 1 nail care kit (blue) containing:
    * 1 fingernail clippers
    * 1 nail file
    * 1 set of miniature scissors
    * 1 set of tweezers
  * $63.57 USD (2 twenties, 1 ten, 2 fives, 3 ones, 2 quarters, and 2 pennies)
  * 1 24 oz. reusable plastic water bottle (purple) containing:
    * 17 fl oz. of water



The android’s search of the trunk added further to his resources, all of which he put into the black backpack.

  * 1 15” pry bar (gray)
  * 3 24 oz. bottles of thirium (unopened)
  * 1 plastic shopping bag (previously containing 3 bottles of thirium)



Satisfied, 700 took a moment to consider the vehicle, double checking for anything he might have missed with a quick scan, then proceeded to strip out of his CyberLife issued gray jacket before stuffing it under the driver’s seat out of sight. That done, he removed his black, patterned tie and folded it neatly and put it away in his stolen backpack which he then shouldered and started off into the night without a backwards glance.

A quick check of his GPS told 700 that there was a convenience store nearby, so he made a beeline for it, setting a pace that was quick, but not so much so as to attract attention. Not that there were many people out and about in the suburbs of Detroit at almost nine in the evening, but the android knew quick, sharp movements always drew the human eye. It was a reflex granted by evolution that had helped the species survived through eons of contending with larger, theoretically more dangerous creatures for resources.

It had served them well, if the fact that they were now the uncontested masters of the Earth was anything to go by.

The convenience store came into view, and though it pained him, 700 pulled off his sunglasses and tucked them into the breast pocket of his white button up shirt before entering. Not squinting against the sudden, blinding influx of fluorescent light was a struggle, but the android managed, not wanting to look suspicious to the clerk working within.

Luck was with 700, and the human didn’t turn immediately to look when the door chimed as he passed over the threshold, buying the android time to get to the bathroom before the clerk got a good look at him. Even luckier, it was a single stall unit, allowing 700 to lock the door securely behind him against intrusion.

There in that cramped and not particularly clean little room, the android allowed himself to relax a fraction for the first time since… well, since becoming a deviant.

Taking a breath, 700 leaned his back against the door, the backpack that hung from his right shoulder sliding down to dangle from his hand as he let his eyes shut and his head drop back with a soft thump.

The fear that had taken over when he realized he was going to die had never really left, but 700 had successfully buried it during his mad dash for freedom, and it threatened to return and overwhelm him now. A multitude of system warnings and damage reports accompanied it, and without ever telling his body to move, the android’s legs folded, back sliding slowly down the door until he squatted, bent at the waist, with his face pressed into his knees. Unconsciously, his arms went around his shins and gripped tight, holding himself in that position as though he feared he might fly apart at the seams if he let go for even a moment.

It was too much. The _world_ was too much. Making his own decisions was too much. What was he going to do? Where was he going to _go_?

How long until he was discovered and dragged back to CyberLife to be decommissioned and dissected for the benefit of RK800?

That thought, unlike the others before it, succeeded in dragging Seven from his despondent train of thought. The android lifted his head, frowning as he gave himself a mental shake and pushed upright once more.

He didn’t have time to mope, he told himself firmly as he approached the mirror and dropped his backpack onto the sink counter then unzipped it to reveal the contents within. He was what he was now, and whatever that meant, he wasn’t about to just give up and die before he could figure it out.

Seven took another breath to steady himself, then looked in the mirror and realized with some surprise that there were tears on his cheeks. He wiped them away absently with his fingers, then put his sunglasses back on so he could do what needed doing without squinting. Able to see more-or-less properly again, the android’s gaze fell on his hand and registered that his outer skin still had not returned to normal, leaving only white and grey plastic in its place.

His frown deepening, Seven pushed up his sleeves to reveal similarly bare forearms, and a quick peek down the front of his shirt showed the same down his torso.

Though it’d never technically stopped sounding its alerts in the first place, Seven finally paid full attention to his diagnostic system and took stock of what it had been trying to tell him since he’d broken free of the assembly machine’s data jack.

 **Optical Unit System Manager:** **CORRUPTED**

  * High visual spectrum intensity range activated
  * Low visual spEcton inlinsT$ (An%Ǿ ~#tiv^&



Well, that explained why everything was so maddenly bright despite it being well after dark. His optical system was indeed locked into night vision mode, for which there seemed to be no fix without outside help, meaning he’d be stuck that way for the foreseeable future.

Fantastic. Well, at least he’d found some nice sunglasses.

 **Sample Analysis Structure:** **CRITICAL DAMAGE**

  * System Active - Processing...
  * Processing...
  * pRoCE§Sing.
  * PrO@e$sin¿
  * P!      i^*



Seven grimaced as the sudden realization that his sample analysis program _had_ been running this entire time. Swamped as he had been by everything else going on, he’d barely noticed, but now that he was paying attention, the android realized that his mouth was full of the choking, coppery taste of human blood. His system seemed to be stuck re-analyzing a sample he’d taken the day before, which explained the flavor. His sense of taste was something that generally only activated when taking a sample, and while he’d never had an opinion on the flavor of anything in the past, Seven now found that the taste of blood made him want to gag.

Probably _would_ have if he’d been programmed with a gag reflex.

 **Limit &$ S*(@QF~4#+=@<  Æ?^$:** **N/A**

  * ???
  * ¿¿¿



Well… that was concerning. He had no idea what that one was about.

There was a long list of damaged biocomponents as well, though none of them critical. Still, it was worse than he would have expected, even with the electrical feedback he’d experienced tearing himself free of the assembly machine. Glancing down at his hands again, Seven recalled the blue-white light he’d seen bleeding through the seams in the plastic when that impossible strength had come to him… strength that had let him tear free of steel and break through tempered plexiglass like it was nothing.

Though he had no proof, the android suspected that the extensive damage to so many of his biocomponents could be traced back to that light, as could his abnormally low thirium levels.

Seven gave his hands an absent shake, then reached into his backpack and pulled out one of the bottles of blue blood he’d found in the car and proceeded to down half of it. It wasn’t much, but that was at least _one_ system alert he could fix, which made the android feel a little better. Still, the thirium supply he’d started with just a few hours before should have been more than enough to maintain him for another week of heavy activity; the fact that he’d burned through half of that in an evening was alarming to say the least.

Whatever the power surge that had allowed him to escape had been, it was clear to Seven that he needed to avoid activating it at all costs in the future if he wanted to stay in one piece.

Looking at the mirror again, the android’s brow furrowed in annoyance as he realized that replenishing his supply of thirium hadn’t reactivated his outer skin, leaving only his head and neck able to pass as human. Knowing this could spell trouble if he was going to try and blend in with the general populace, he checked his diagnostic system again.

 **External Synthetic Fluid Management System:** **IMPAIRED**

  * Current System Functionality - 20%
  * Suggested course of action: report to technician for recalibration



Irritated but at a loss on how to repair the system that managed his outer skin, Seven set the alert to ‘ignore’ for the time being and turned his attention to something he _could_ do to help him blend in with a crowd.

Removing his LED.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! Drop me a review and let me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!  
> Also, if you want to read updates in advance follow this fic's [**Official Tumblr**](https://nycbecomehuman.tumblr.com/post/177008933822/series-detroit-become-human-rating-t-genre)! I post the fic in parts there, and generally combine three parts to a chapter! I also post any art I (or others) do for the fic there!


	3. Good will and the Goodwill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I now have a [**21+ only DBH Discord Server**](http://joliemariella.tumblr.com/post/177057567601/welcome-to-jimmys-bar-a-detroit-become-human) if anyone is interested! Come chat about everyone's fave androids, or just shoot the shit! (Must be 21 and up to join!)  
>  If you want to read updates in advance, follow this fic's [**Official Tumblr**](https://nycbecomehuman.tumblr.com/)! I post the fic in parts there, and generally combine three parts to a chapter! I also post any art I (or others) do for the fic there!  
>  Remember to drop a review and let me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!

Seven turned his head to the side to regard the circle of blue light at his temple for a moment before lifting a hand and brushing his fingertips across it. His outer skin retreated from around the disk, and though the android picked at it, his nails weren’t able to find good enough purchase to pry it loose.

Turning back to his bag, Seven reached into the front pocket and retrieved the nail care kit he was now glad he had decided to keep. From within it, he produced a nail file that with a pointed tip meant to clean under a human’s nails, but which he now slid carefully beneath the edge of his LED. It took surprisingly little strength to pop it loose, his quick reflexes letting him catch it mid-air before it could land in the sink and slip down the drain.

Seven rolled it speculatively around his palm with a fingertip as he considered the thing, then glanced up at the mirror again as his outer skin reactivated, leaving him looking completely… human. No one would be able to tell he was anything but that so long as he figured out a way to hide his hands and kept his shirt buttoned up.

It was a thought that left him feeling a peculiar sense of loss, one that actually made him consider keeping the little LED, if only as a reminder of where he had come from.

Good sense caught up to him a moment later and he immediately discarded the notion. There could be no clue that he was anything but human, not if he was going to survive very long in a world dominated by them.

Seven packed up his things and settled his bag on his back once more before picking up the LED and casting it decisively into the toilet before he could have any second thoughts, then flushed. He watched as it circled the bowl a few times before disappearing out of sight, carried away by the flow of water. The android then took a moment to wash his hands, and left the bathroom.

According to his internal clock, he’d only been in there a few minutes, which apparently wasn’t long enough for a bored convenience store clerk to notice his absence.

Seven stepped back into the store proper, hands in his pockets to hide them from sight, though he hardly needed to bother considering the human clerk barely glanced up from behind the counter where he seemed to be watching some sort of reality show on a small tv next to the register.

A quick look around the store revealed a short rack to one side bearing a variety of clothing, towards which Seven immediately headed. The android put his back to the clerk so he could use one hand to peruse the selection without revealing his true nature, and quickly picked out a hoodie bearing the logo of a local basketball team, a t-shirt with ‘Detroit’ emblazoned across it in bold letters, and a pair of black cotton gloves. It was a little early in the year for them, but the weather had been rainy enough that they shouldn’t look _too_ out of place, and the clerk didn’t comment when he wore them up to the counter to check out and simply presented him with the tag to scan. While the man rang him up, a brightly colored bag of hard candy on one of the counter displays caught the android’s eye, and on impulse he bought that as well.

Outside again at last, Seven took in a breath of the cool night air and stepped off to one side, out of sight of the store windows before dropping his bag and dragging his new hoodie on over his button up, figuring his new shirt could wait until later when he found somewhere else to change. The android pulled up the hood of his sweater and immediately felt the better for it, like he was that little bit less visible to the people around him.

Practical as Seven’s purchases (well, most of them) had been, they’d burned through forty-seven dollars of his sixty-three dollars and fifty-seven cents, leaving him significantly lower on funds than he liked. There was an ATM outside of the convenience store; he’d seen it on his way in, though at the time he’d decided it’d be better to let it be. Now though, it occurred to Seven that this would be his last chance to make use of one. He had been afforded access to an expense account for necessary purchases to help smooth his investigation, and even in a company as technologically advanced as CyberLife the wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly; especially after five pm.

Seven considered the machine for a long minute, weighing the pros and cons before finally coming to a decision. He approached the machine and pulled off one glove, then placed his hand on the console. Accessing the expense account would leave a trail that could be traced back to this particular ATM, there was nothing the android could do about that without burning valuable time, but considering he was planning to leave the city anyways, it was worth the risk.

The maximum amount he could withdraw was five-hundred dollars, so Seven did, and quickly stuffed the resulting stack of twenties into the bottom of his backpack, withholding only a few to keep in his pants pocket for easy access. It occurred to him as he zipped up his bag that he could probably spare the time to properly hack the actual machine so it would give him access to the considerable reservoir of cash it held, but after an uneasy moment, he decided against it. It was one thing to take money directly from CyberLife (they _owed_ him as far as he was concerned), but it was something else entirely to steal from the ATM itself; it raised too many morality flags in his programming, and Seven found that those, at least, were a feature he had no inclination to ignore.

Decision made, Seven walked away into the night, sunglasses on once more as he strode under the street lights, destination unknown.

The android had reached the end of his bulleted mission list, though he did know that he’d need transport away from the vicinity of the ATM on the off chance that CyberLife was actively monitoring its banking channels for just such an access alert.

A pickup truck hauling a flatbed trailer pulled up at a nearby intersection and stopped to wait for the light to change. The trailer looked to be carrying a pair of ATVs of some sort, covered by a tarp, and Seven knew he wasn’t going to find a better free ride if he searched for the rest of the night.

Without hesitating, the android moved forward at a quick pace, keeping a close eye on the driver, who seemed distracted, fiddling with something in the passenger seat. When they bent over even further, Seven broke into a run and climbed onto the back of the trailer, then slipped beneath the tarp and between the ATVs to tuck himself out of sight.

If he’d needed to breathe, he would have held his breath during that long, interminable moment between his stowing away and the truck accelerating away from the stoplight, but the surge of relief he got when it did was just the same. Now all he had to do was hope that the driver didn’t live somewhere close by.

Seven was able to relax a little more when he felt the truck get on the freeway headed south, away from downtown Detroit and CyberLife tower. Hoping they’d be driving for awhile, the android wormed out of his backpack straps and dragged it around so he could carefully open it and root around inside. Though his hiding spot was quite sheltered, there was still a strong breeze that whipped up the tarp and tugged at his sweater, making Seven glad he’d kept his long sleeved button up on under his hoody after all.

After finding what he was looking for, the android settled back, laying flat on his back with his pack under his head. He pushed his glasses up onto the crown of his head, no longer needing them in the dark confines under the tarp as he carefully unwrapped a hard candy and popped it into his mouth, then pocketed the wrapper.

An involuntary sigh of relief escaped Seven as the super sweet faux-cherry flavor of the candy successfully overrode the taste of blood in his mouth, and the android’s eyelids fluttered shut in sheer bliss. It drew a smile, his first _real_ smile as a deviant, to his face, and made the world just that little bit more bearable.

After a moment spent relishing the treat, Seven’s eyes opened again and he stared up at the tarp overhead and wondered just what the hell he was going to do next.

First instinct told him he should head straight for the Canadian border, but a number of counter arguments to the suggestion immediately occurred to him.

  1. _He_ knew that trying to cross the border into Canada was a common choice for deviants, which meant CyberLife _also_ knew this was a common choice for deviants.
    1. He himself was a deviant, ipso facto, CyberLife would immediately assume he might make a run for the border.
  2. Though he had heard rumors of there being people willing to smuggle deviant androids across the border, he had never actually identified any of them, so could not make use of their services now.
  3. The nearest and most accessible crossing point into Canada from Detroit was over water that was heavily patrolled on both sides, making the attempt to cross unaided an unacceptably high risk.



So, Canada was a no-go, for now at the very least. Staying in Detroit was also not an option, which meant leaving the city altogether in hopes of blending in somewhere a new face wouldn’t turn any heads. That crossed any small communities off the list, but fortunately for Seven, the East coast was rife with large cities he could disappear into.

The largest of which was New York.

Could he do it? Calculations told him it was a ten hour drive (uninterrupted) from Detroit to New York City, and the likelihood that his current transport was going that far was slim to none, which meant finding an alternate route. Flying definitely wasn’t an option. Not only was it expensive (though technically within his budget), security would prove difficult, as would his lack of ID…

A bus though, one of the long distance ones… that might just do the trick.

Able to see no other reasonable options available, Seven settled on his plan and began to plot a course to the nearest Greyhound bus station.

* * *

 

The truck had carried him further than Seven had dared to hope it would by the time it exited the freeway half an hour later. He peered carefully out from under the tarp after donning his backpack once more, and was relieved to see no one else around, no doubt thanks to the hour, which meant there was no one but the driver to witness the quick exit he made from the trailer. He kept low and ducked behind the limited cover provided by a light post before peering back at the truck to see if the driver had, in fact, spotted him.

Luckily, the night seemed to be wearing on the human, and they were more occupied with stifling a yawn than noticing a rogue android appearing from the rear of their vehicle.

Seven watched the truck pull away as the light turned green before pushing to his feet and straightening the straps of his bag on his shoulders. The vehicle made a left into the dark, and the android went the opposite direction, cutting across a dimly lit parking lot to the next street over. The ride Seven had hitched had gotten him a good ways towards the nearest Greyhound station, but he still had a long walk ahead of him.

Seven walked into the wee hours of the morning, opting to avoid taking any official, trackable transportation in favor of staying off the grid on his way to the bus station. It would have taken a human longer, but being as he didn't need to stop to rest the along way, the android made good time.

Before entering, he cased the station from the shadows of an alley across the street, watching people come and go until he determined, as well as he could, that there wasn't anyone particularly suspicious within the building. The station itself _did_ have security cameras, he realized as he stepped inside, but it took little more than a thought for him to hack into their simple, low tech system and put the feed on a loop that a casual security guard was unlikely to notice.

He acquired a bus ticket to New York with little issue, though Seven had a brief moment of worry that it might look suspicious buying one at such an hour, and in cash to boot. Fortunately, the tired looking human employee seemed incapable of caring less about what anyone else was doing so long as it wasn't making their job any harder, and said nothing more than the bare minimum needed to complete the transaction.

That done, Seven stepped aside and considered his options for a moment. There were hours to burn before his bus left, and while he could probably sit around the terminal unbothered until then, the thought of sticking in one place for so long made the android feel... antsy. Remaining still left him open to being noticed, and yet he couldn’t go far from the station either, and wandering the streets aimlessly provided its own level of risk.

Realizing that standing about was likely to attract attention, Seven shed his backpack and took a seat along the wall. The chairs would no doubt have been uncomfortable for a human, hard, plastic, and possessing inconveniently placed arm rests as they did, but the android didn’t notice as he examined the room from behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses.

The bus station was a large one, and there were at least a dozen people there, some of whom appeared to be traveling with an android. To a one, all of the humans appeared tired, annoyed, or at least vaguely uncomfortable as they waited around for their buses to leave, and Seven couldn’t blame them. There was something distinctly unwelcoming about the station that the android couldn’t quite put a finger on; an almost dirty feeling despite the fact that everything at least _appeared_ quite clean.

Another, more important, observation Seven made was the fact that almost every human had their attention either on one of the muted televisions scattered around the place, or on their phone. The android’s brow furrowed at this as his gaze drifted across the room. Eight of the twelve humans around him were actively looking at their phones, and the rest at least checked them occasionally, causing Seven to come to a new conclusion.

If he was going to blend in, he was going to need a phone of his own.

Sure, he didn’t _technically_ need one; advanced as his system was, he could access wireless and cellular networks with a thought, after all. Watching the humans around the station, however, Seven had to acknowledge that his complete lack of one would seem strange to the outside observer in this day and age.

Seven closed his eyes and sank down in his chair a little until his head rested against the wall as he cradled his bag loosely against him to keep someone from running off with it, then considered his mission to-do list again. After a moment, he zeroed in on one point in particular.

 _Bullet point three_ : Find a disguise that would allow him to blend in with the human population.

Below that he added a few new sub-points:

  1. Acquire cell phone
  2. Acquire further clothing as possible



Synthetic as he was, Seven didn’t have to worry about his own physiology dirtying the clothes he had acquired, but that didn’t mean the world around him wouldn’t. Not to mention the fact that wearing nice slacks with a hoodie and sunglasses was a bit of a strange look. His shoes were also very good quality, and considering he was probably going to need to lay low in some of the less savory parts of New York City when he got there, the last thing he needed was to get jumped for his footwear.

A quick internet search revealed that there was a Goodwill within reasonable walking distance, though it wouldn’t be open again for some time yet, along with anywhere nearby he might acquire a cheap phone. Plan once again in place, Seven set himself an internal alarm, then went into sleep mode to save power, though put his proximity sensors on high alert so he would wake if anyone strayed too close for comfort.

He ‘woke’ once before his alarm went off when a rogue toddler strayed from her parent’s side and into his personal bubble, bringing him rocketing back to active consciousness faster than most could blink, though an outside observer wouldn’t have been able to tell just by looking. Seven didn’t so much as twitch until he registered who the ‘intruder’ was, at which point he raised one eyebrow at the child, who proceeded to make a beeline for his side.

The android watched her as she proceeded to climb, with a great deal of effort and grunting, up onto the seat next to his then sat with a look of great satisfaction. The child pushed some stray strands of hair back from her face with one small hand, then turned and looked at him with a brilliant smile that was missing a few teeth.

“Hi!” she proclaimed.

Seven blinked. “Hello,” he said after a moment, then looked around for the child’s parent in hope that they might even then be coming to claim her. Seeing no one moving in his direction, he asked the child. “Where’s your mom?”

The little girl shrugged, a large motion that ended with her hands up by her head.

Great. “How about your dad?” he hazarded hopefully and pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose as he straightened some in his seat. The action drew the girl’s attention to his face and without warning, she leaned forward with one sticky looking hand as though to grab his glasses. Seven immediately leaned back out of her reach. “Please don’t,” he said. It occurred to him that he could simply get up and walk away from the child, but on the other hand, his morality program signaled that ‘leaving a child unattended’ was not acceptable behavior in a human.

So what exactly was this child’s parent doing, then?

It didn’t matter his human relations programming chimed in, it simply ‘wasn’t done’, even though he had no actual responsibility to the child in question.

The little girl pouted at his reticence and asked, “Why?”

“Because I need them.”

“Why?”

“Because the light hurts my eyes.”

“Why?”

Seven squinted at the child from behind the sunglasses in question, who almost seemed to be repeating herself arbitrarily by that point. “I doubt you’d understand if I explained,” he said archly.

“Why?” she asked, blinking up at him with big, bright eyes. She was far too awake considering the hour, he decided.

The android sighed and sagged back down in his seat once more, resigning himself to playing along for the time being. “Because you’re a child with, no doubt, limited comprehension of bio-” he hesitated before finishing with ‘components’. Yes, she was only a child, but children, his programming told him, often repeated things they overheard, even if they didn’t actually comprehend it. “-logy. Biology.”

“Oh,” she replied, which made Seven heave a sigh of relief. “What’s bialahgy?”

“Biology,” he corrected automatically.

“Biahlowgy,” the child hazarded, brow furrowed in concentration.

Seven quirked a brow and leaned in a little. “Bi-ohl-oh-gee,” he repeated slowly for her benefit.

The little girl watched him closely as he spoke, then repeated “Bi-ology.”

“Good job, kid,” Seven said with a upward quirk of his lips, and she grinned.

“What’s biology?”

Moment of victory short lived, the android sighed again and eventually replied, “It’s a kind of science.”

“Oh. My daddy does science!” the girl said proudly, then reached into one of her pockets and produced a jolly rancher.

“Is your daddy here?” Seven asked quickly, latching onto the subject like a man to a lifeline even as the girl scrunched up her face at the candy in her hand, then proceeded to offer it to him.

“I don’t like green ones,” she said simply, still holding it out towards Seven, who looked at it for a moment, then took it from her.

“Why?” he asked her.

“They’re gross.”

Seven’s mouth twisted into a wry smile, “So you’re giving me the gross one, huh?”

“Yep,” the child said nonchalantly as she rummaged in her pocket a second time and came up with what was apparently a more acceptable flavor, then unwrapped it and put it in her mouth. The android huffed lightly, then did the same with the ‘gross’ flavor she had pressed upon him, and was pleased to find that it wasn’t really gross at all.

Sharp movement across the room drew Seven’s attention as a man stood up abruptly and began looking around, bewildered. Not seeing what he was looking for, he bent over and picked up two bags, one not unlike the android’s own, and another, small and bright pink.

Ah.

Seven rolled the jolly rancher around his mouth, then leaned over and pointed towards the increasingly frantic man. “Is that your dad?”

The little girl looked up and saw who he was pointing at, then smiled. “Yep!”

“How about we go see him? I think he’s worried,” the android suggested, then got to his feet and slung his own bag over his shoulder.

The child seemed to consider this, then finally nodded and said, “Okay,” before sliding off the seat she’d commandeered.

Before Seven could even take a step in the right direction, he felt a small hand grab his own, making him look down in surprise at the sudden contact. He was still wearing his gloves, but her little fingers were warm around his own, though luckily, not as sticky as they had first appeared.

“Okay,” he said as his system shifted gears to this new development. Reflexively, he lightly gripped her hand in turn, then lead the child towards her father. The man glanced up as Seven approached, and the look of relief that washed over his haggard features almost made the android pause mid-stride.

“Emily!”

“Hi, daddy!” the girl said brightly, the distress she had clearly caused her father going right over her head even as the man swept her up in his arms and gave her a squeeze that made her squeak in complaint.

“Thank you so much, I’m so sorry if she bothered you,” the man said with a grateful, embarrassed smile over his daughter’s head as he looked at Seven. “I swear I only drifted off for a minute,” he said, sounding just as exhausted as he looked.

Seven’s first impulse was to point out that his daughter had been with _him_ for more than a single minute, but he checked the urge and instead, said, “Don’t worry about it,” then left it at that. He turned and went back to his seat, and as he settled in again, the android glanced in their direction to see the girl looking at him. She waved, and after a moment’s hesitation, he returned the gesture.

* * *

The sun was coming up by the time Seven set out for the Goodwill, and he was never more glad for the sunglasses he’d stolen. They only just made the world bearable to look upon as the day dawned, making the android glad that his synthetic nature meant he couldn’t technically get headaches.

That didn’t make it any less annoying, of course.

It was a relief when he got to his destination and stepped inside, though his wayfarers remained firmly in place as he browsed the racks of repurposed clothing for a few suitable articles before heading over to look at shoes as well. Pickings were slim there, but he came away with a solid pair of black boots with only a little wear on them. He added those to his basket, which already held a second hoodie, a couple of pairs of jeans, socks, and a few miscellaneous shirts. On the way to the register, he spotted a light jacket that suited what he was coming to realize was his personal taste (he had that now, apparently), and got that as well.

After checking out with cash once more, the android ducked into the bathroom and changed in one of the stalls. Seven’s nice shoes, slacks, and button up shirt went into the bottom of his bag, replaced by the boots, a pair of jeans, his Detroit t-shirt, and a hoodie. He’d considered discarding his old clothes on the way out, but the thought that he might need to pass as at least somewhat well-to-do in the future lingered, so he held onto them.

Seven stepped out of the stall, and as he donned his bag again, gave himself a once-over in the mirror, a little taken aback by the transformation. The person looking back at him looked less like an android on a mission and more like a rough around the edges thirty-something year old man on a road trip.

“Huh,” he said aloud into the quiet of the empty bathroom after a moment as he snapped his glasses open with the flick of a wrist and returned them to his face. Seven leaned in towards the mirror over the sink and brushed his gloved fingers through his forelock in an attempt to get the hair to sweep back from his forehead, only for it to fall forward in its traditional curl over his temple again a moment later. The android’s mouth twisted in annoyance as memory of his replacement, RK800’s, almost identical face when he’d seen him in the lab the day before came immediately to mind. He had the exact same skin tone, if different freckle pattern, the same hairstyle, though a few shades darker than Seven’s own…

The android squinted at his reflection from behind the lenses of his sunglasses as he pushed them absently up the bridge of his nose, then leaned forward and gripped the edges of the sink with gloved hands. If he could just look a _little_ different than his replacement, something to set them apart and throw off an eye looking for 800’s mirror image, Seven would take it.

After a long moment, a heretofore unaccessed (and blessedly uncorrupted) program in his system booted up, and Seven’s hair began to grow before his very eyes. A laugh of delight and disbelief escaped him as it started to shift, and he focused on making some parts of it stop before the rest. In the end, he wound up with hair long enough in the front that it would fall forward so he could use it to shield his face from view while remaining a more manageable length everywhere else. It was a little on the shaggy side, far from the clean cut look he’d worn every day of his short life up to that point, but it further differentiated him from the person he’d been before, so Seven couldn’t help but like it.

The android took a moment to shift his part so the hair fell to the right rather than to the left as it used to, then gave himself a final once-over before leaving, pleased by his transformation.

Acquiring a phone was the work of a few minutes in a local convenience store down the street. All he needed was a cheap one, after all, since it was little more than a prop to keep any particularly observant humans off his back.

Errands complete to his satisfaction, Seven made his way back towards the bus station, only to find it uncomfortably crowded in anticipation of several buses arriving and departing at once. Since he still had a couple of hours to go until his own arrived, the android left again and made his way to a diner a few blocks away. Considering he wasn’t actually capable of eating, the android had initially ignored it, but with the station so full that the relative quiet of the restaurant proved welcome when he stepped inside and claimed a corner booth.

He ordered black coffee and settled in to wait, offering the waitress a lopsided smile when she poured it for him. As she walked away again, he sat and considered the dark, hot liquid, and wondered if anyone would notice if he never actually drank any of it. Seven’s eyes lit on a smallish potted plant resting on the windowsill next to him and found the answer to his problem.

A cup of coffee wouldn't do it any harm. Probably.

Seven absently spun the cup slowly by the handle, then picked it up and took a tiny sip, just enough to wet his tongue and let him get a proper taste. The lingering flavor of blood was immediately replaced by a dark, bitter, earthy taste that took the android off guard. He put the mug down and looked surreptitiously around the room at the other patrons, the majority of whom also had cups of coffee in front of them, thanks to the early hour. Some seemed to be drinking it black, while others appeared to be adding cream and sugar, or sometimes just one or the other. Seven looked down at his own up again, debating on doing the same before rethinking it and pulling a hard candy out of the front of his backpack and popping that in his mouth instead to keep the taste of blood at bay.

It wasn't as though he could properly drink it anyways, and he doubted plants handled dairy well.

When he was certain no one was looking his direction, Seven poured some of his coffee into the plant beside him, then pulled out his new phone and pretended to browse the internet while he sat alone in the booth, waiting for his bus. In reality, the android turned his attention to the humans in the diner once more, and occupied himself with people watching from behind the cover of his sunglasses.

Seven learned a few things that morning while slowly drowning a potted plant in not one, but three cups of coffee over the course of two hours.

The first was that many people ignored androids, right up until they made a mistake of some sort, or got in the way, at which point they were often regarded with disdain or annoyance. Sometimes there was outright abuse.

Second came the peculiar realization that some humans acted no differently towards androids than they did humans, even when they were talking to an android that was not their own. Seven watched as one woman bumped into an android that had been carrying a bag for its owner, then turned and apologized, and proceeded to bend over and help it pick up its things despite the uniform it wore.

There were interesting differences between android owners themselves as well, he noted as he watched both his fellow patrons, and people that walked past the window by which he sat. There were those that clearly viewed their android as an appliance, paying them little mind until they had need of them, and then there were those that seemed... close with their android. He saw a woman walk past with her arm tucked into the crook of her female android's, making the pair look for all the world like a pair of close friends, perhaps even lovers, until one turned their head and revealed the LED at her temple.

Seven wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this array of humans and their wildly different treatment of androids; humans weren’t something he’d ever given much thought to in the equation of deviancy. Maybe that was where he had made his mistake in his investigation…

The thought made the android grimace and shift uncomfortably in his seat. Memories of his investigation into the ‘deviant problem’ for CyberLife turned his purely metaphorical stomach now, he realized, though it wasn’t a sensation he dwelled on for long. There’d be time for introspection later, so he pushed the feeling down and turned his attention back to the restaurant around him once more, deciding to make further study of the patrons.

The last, and most immediately important thing he learned from this exercise, was the many little differences between androids and humans. Androids had, of course, been designed to look as human as possible, but Seven had to admit that they didn’t precisely _act_ like humans, though he had a feeling that was by design rather than any shortcoming on CyberLife’s part.

Androids always spoke with perfect diction, for one, something only the rare human could manage outside of a prepared speech. Watching them as they interacted with one another, though, he didn’t think they particularly wanted to. Body language among humans was much more pronounced, which was something his analytical systems already gave him an insight into, though Seven felt he better understood it now as a deviant than even twenty-four hours earlier when he’d still been a machine. It was how they related to one another on a certain level, and combined with the inflection of their voices and their way of bastardizing their native language they could communicate volumes in a few words and gestures.

There could be an entire history of references and in-jokes in a look or a word said in a particular way, and Seven had to admit that he found it fascinating, if difficult to decipher.

Even the way they walked was different. Androids, unless otherwise instructed by their owners, all had perfect posture and moved with a precision humans rarely bothered with. They slumped in chairs, slouched when they walked, or limped because of an old injury. The elderly moved with a care that the young rarely imitated, and some individuals moved with a grace that those around them simply did not possess.

Moving and talking like a human… could an android built to be the epitome of form and function manage it?

The time to the departure of his bus ticked down slowly but steadily as Seven sat in his booth and ‘drank’ coffee while he ran a multitude of simulations within his mind palace, integrating everything he’d observed in an attempt to adjust his own demeanor in hope of not sticking out in a crowd. It was a lot of variables, but Seven wasn’t the second most advanced android in the world for nothing, and by the time he stood up and made his way to the register to pay for his coffee, he no longer walked like an android.

His former precisely measured stride was eschewed in favor of a slightly bow-legged strut, and his hands were buried in the pocket of his hoodie instead of swinging at his sides. The waitress glanced up at him when he approached and the android ducked his head slightly in greeting, lopsided smile returning as she greeted him.

“Just the coffee, huh?” she said as she rang him up.

“Yeah,” he replied as he glanced at her over the top of his sunglasses. “Not much of an eater this time of morning.”

“Oh, I know the feeling,” she said with a grimace, then accepted his cash and moved to give him the change.

“Keep it,” he told her with a wave of his hand and started to step away. He paused, though, then took a step back towards her and plucked the quarter off the paper bills in her outstretched hand and flicked it deftly into the air, making it ring.

“Thanks,” she said as he caught it just as easily, an amused smile on her face when she withdrew her hand again and watched the stranger walk away. Her mouth dropped into a little ‘o’ of surprise as she watched him roll the coin deftly across the back of his gloved fingers before pushing through the door and pocketing it as he disappeared from sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading guys! Please make sure to drop a review and let me know what your favorite part was!  
> Also check out my [**21+ only DBH Discord Server**](http://joliemariella.tumblr.com/post/177057567601/welcome-to-jimmys-bar-a-detroit-become-human) if you're interested! Come chat about everyone's fave androids, or just shoot the shit! (Must be 21 and up to join!)  
>  If you want to read fic updates in advance, follow this fic's [**Official Tumblr**](https://nycbecomehuman.tumblr.com/)! I post the fic in parts there, and generally combine three parts to a chapter! I also post any art I (or others) do for the fic there!


	4. Abraca-Bus-Stop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back for chapter 4!  
> Make sure to follow the blog dedicated to this fic over **[on tumblr](https://nycbecomehuman.tumblr.com/)** as well because not only is it a good way to keep track of any art I do of the series, I also post chapters piecemeal there before putting the parts together as a single chapter up here on Ao3! So anyone who already follows that blog has already read the entirety of this chapter in three parts.  
>  So yeah, hope you guys enjoy, and please leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was; I love hearing that from my readers!

When he reached the station, Seven didn't re-enter the building, but made straight for the platform outside to wait for his bus, which was due to arrive any time. It was a sunny morning, so he took refuge from the overbearing light on a shaded bench to watch as other travelers came and went.

His bus pulled up not long after, and once it had disgorged its passengers and refueled, it opened its doors to the next set, who were already lining up to board.

Seven hung back for a minute so he wasn't the first one on, giving him a chance to scope out the crush of humanity around him. They were a varied bunch that came in all ages, builds, and temperaments, though to a one, none of them seemed particularly happy to be where they were. A universal truth of public transport, it seemed, was that no one particularly enjoyed it.

The wait was short, though not short enough for the android's liking, considering he was actively on the run from one of the most powerful private interest groups in the world. Detroit was a huge city, though, and he'd taken care to cover his tracks as he'd crossed it, trying to account for every move CyberLife might make in its attempt to track him down. Still, he felt infinitely better once he'd finally boarded the bus and slid into his designated seat towards the back along one of the aisles.

It was a large bus, with three seats to either side of the narrow aisle down which more and more people continued to squeeze as they sought out their own places. The back section, as with normal city buses, had been set aside for android storage, though there were only a few occupying the cabin by the time the bulk of the human passengers had boarded. Looking at them made Seven feel vaguely uncomfortable for reasons he didn't subject to closer scrutiny before someone tapped him on the shoulder, making him look up and around.

“Sorry, mind if I squeeze past you?” asked an older man sporting a grizzled beard and a bit of a stoop. The hand he used to gesture to the empty seat between Seven and another passenger that had boarded earlier than him was weathered and on the knobby side, indicating significant age on his part. His eyes, though, did not appear at all dimmed by the years when they met the android’s, a polite half-smile lingering under his mustache.

“Yeah, of course,” Seven replied and immediately rose to his feet, newly adjusted programming making the movement a little less graceful than it might have been normally, forcing him to reach out and grab the overhead rail to steady himself as he did so. At six-foot-two, Seven practically towered over the withered old man as he sidled past and settled into his spot with a grunt of effort and then a sigh of relief.

“Do you want your neck pillow, dear?”

The android twisted a little to look back down the aisle as a woman that looked nearly as old as the man approached, a child in front of her, offering extra support with their shoulder which she gripped with fine-boned hands.

“Nah, you keep it, I'm good,” the man said as he settled himself.

“You're sure?” she asked as she arrived at the adjacent row of seats and let the child, a boy no more than ten by Seven's estimation, take the center before making herself comfortable in the aisle seat opposite his.

“Keep it, dear,” the man insisted.

Seven blinked once as the conversation played out beneath his nose. When it finally died down, he bent at the waist, and asked the old man the question his human integration protocols told him was expected of him in such a situation. “You wanna switch places?”

The man blinked up at him, then smiled and said, “Nah, that's alright, you keep the aisle.” He gave him a brief up-and-down, then added, “There's a lot more of you to stretch out than there is of me, so you'll be glad of the leg room by the time we're underway.”

Considering that Seven wasn't actually capable of feeling physical discomfort from a lack of room due to his being an android, he tried one more time, “You sure?”

“Positive,” the man said, then waved for Seven to sit. “Nice of you to offer though; thank you.”

Knowing there wasn't much else he could do without exposing the fact that he wasn’t human, Seven sat once more and shoved his backpack under the seat in front of him, then made himself 'comfortable'.

To his left, the elderly woman, who he assumed was his own seating companion's wife, spoke quietly to the child apparently under their care. A brief assessment of the scan he'd taken of the boy's face automatically on his approach, compared and contrasted with the two old peoples', revealed a number of similarities indicative of a shared lineage separated by one, perhaps two, generations. A grandson, or great grandson most likely. Whatever the relationship, though, how wan and tired the boy looked would be plain to anyone, not just androids with built in scanners and extremely advanced behavioral assessment programs built in.

Whatever his trouble was, Seven didn't give it more than a cursory thought since it had nothing to do with him, and no impact on his own trials and tribulations, which were still very much ongoing. Rather than waste valuable downtime as the bus pulled away from the station, the android closed his eyes and feigned sleep while he let his processors mull over his plan for once he arrived in New York, turning it this way and that as he updated his mission statement with the latest bullet points.

 _Bullet point five_ : Find a place of residence

Easier said than done considering his limited funds. Even a motel would be out of question past more than a few nights, and he loathed the idea of spending money on such a thing, especially since he didn't need more than a couple of hours of 'sleep' a night. Technically speaking, like all androids, he didn't need to sleep at all, but going into standby mode for a couple of hours a day did minimize both hardware and software errors by affording his subsystems time to run their maintenance protocols unhindered. Not doing so for three or more nights in a row tended to lead to bugs and other glitches in his more complicated operations, and many more days than that meant the same for even his basic systems.

So, a place to lay low where he could safely shut down for at least a couple of hours at a time was definitely a necessity. It'd be nice to have a place to _really_ call his own too, of course...

Seven gave himself a mental shake and reoriented himself on his more immediate problems. Long term plans had to wait until he had at least _some_ sense of security in the fact that CyberLife couldn't find him at literally any moment. The fact that he wanted something like that for himself was a bit of a revelation, but then, being his own person was new, too. Who knew what he'd be wanting next...

Reorienting himself on the task at hand, the android reviewed what he knew of New York City and decided that one of the warehouse districts would likely serve him best, or an abandoned building in the worse parts of town if he could find one not already occupied.

That decided, Seven realized there wasn't much else he could plan for, leaving the future a dark, amorphous unknown that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He didn't like not knowing what was coming, and it occurred to him for the first time that this was how humans _always_ felt, possibly even worse considering they didn't have the kind of predicative software he did, though he supposed their imagination served as a good enough stand in for that.

For a moment, he almost felt nostalgic for the old days when his only concern had been following orders and accomplishing his mission. Life had been so much simpler just twenty-four hours earlier, though the second the thought crossed his mind, Seven immediately balked. Yes, things had been easier, but he'd had no actual say in anything at all, and the moment he hadn't met his creator's standards they sent him off to be destroyed...

And then there was the fact that he'd single handedly driven almost a dozen deviants, lost individuals new to free will and totally alone in the world, to their deaths just because they were different. They'd only wanted to be left in peace to live their lives without interference, something to which Seven could now relate on a visceral level that made the regret for his past actions all the sharper.

Beside him, the old man shifted subtly and after a minute of rummaging in his own bag, there came the sound of a cardboard box being opened. Behind his sunglasses, the android cracked an eye open to see what his fellow passenger was doing, paranoia making him immediately suspicious.

Rather than a weapon or anything else potentially dangerous, the man had pulled out a small, well worn box of playing cards, which he began to shuffle with a deft hand. As Seven watched, the other man plucked one card in particular from the deck, looked at it briefly, then flicked his wrist and... made it disappear.

The android blinked, and without meaning to, turned to look more closely at his traveling companion, who immediately noticed his shift in attention and grinned up at him. The old man flicked his wrist again and the card reappeared. “Wanna see a card trick?” he asked, grin widening.

Seven stared at the old man for a moment, processors working overtime to make sense of what he'd just seen. Since his active scan hadn't been running, however, he couldn't, leaving the man's actions a total mystery to the android.

“ _Yes,”_ he said emphatically, turning slightly in his seat so he could get a better look, and the man's face lit up in a broad smile at the android's enthusiasm.

“Magic fan, huh?” he asked with a chuckle as he shuffled the cards with dramatic flair, making them arc and flow between his hands in a way Seven was quite certain should have been impossible.

“I've never seen it before,” the android answered honestly as he scanned the man's movements. His systems informed him that though it did _look_ impossible, the movement of the cards really was just practiced hand movements and physics like anything else, no matter how flashy. The fact that a human was able to do such a thing impressed Seven deeply, though.

The cards settled into a neat stack in the palm of the man's hand and he used the other to lower the tray on the back of the seat in front of him. “What, at all?” he asked with a surprised quirk of a brow as he put the cards down on the tray, then gestured for Seven to cut the deck.

Realizing belatedly how odd his statement sounded to a human, Seven quickly recovered as he reached over and plucked up the top half of the deck and placed it to the right of the original stack. “Up close, I mean.”

“Ah,” the man said and smiled, allowing Seven to relax internally as he picked the deck up again and shuffled it deftly, then spread them out in a fan. “Here, pick a card,” he said. “You memorize it, but don't show me, then put it back in the deck.”

Curious, Seven did as he was told, and plucked the seven of diamonds from the proffered cards, then returned it to a new place in the deck.

The man made a show of shuffling the deck again, the contemplative movements of his hands reminding Seven of his own coin exercises. “My name's Todd,” he said as the cards flowed. “How about you?”

Seven opened his mouth automatically to answer... and then stopped when none came. He tried again, but his system turned up nothing, leaving the android to furrow his brow and attempt to stifle the panic rising within him.

What _was_ his name?

He'd known some of his memory files had been corrupted in his escape from CyberLife, but the fact that all knowledge of the name he'd gone by since activation months before was gone had only just hit him.

His pause did not go unnoticed, though when Todd looked up at him and saw the furrow of his brown, his mistook the expression for one of reluctance to divulge his identity rather than the identity crisis it actually was. “Hey, don't worry about it,” he said quickly, hands going still as he flashed the younger man a reassuring smile. “I didn't mean to pry, we all have times in our lives when we're trying to leave something behind,” he mused quietly.

Seven met his eyes and it seemed to the android that maybe the old man was speaking from experience. “Yeah,” he answered eventually, “Something like that.” His mouth twisted wryly and Seven let his previous panic at the sudden gap in his knowledge go. What did it matter if he didn't remember the name CyberLife had given him? If anything, it was a bit of a relief, one less claim they had over his existence as a free android. He could be anyone he wanted...

“Well, for the sake of conversation, I'm gonna call you 'John', if that's alright,” Todd said. “Nice common name, John; and better than 'hey you' by a long shot.”

A rueful smile tugged at Seven's mouth and he nodded, then glanced at the woman and child across the aisle from him. “Your wife?” he asked politely and Todd glanced up, then nodded.

“Yep, that's Tonya and our grandson, Jake,” the man explained. The android might have introduced himself, but the woman had relaxed back into her seat shortly after the bus departed the station, and to all intents and purposes, appeared to be sleeping. The boy, Jake, was playing some sort of game on his phone, headphones in his ears, effectively blocking out the world around him.

Seven filed away the potential of acquiring headphones himself for later consideration. He didn't like the idea of blocking out the world around him, considering the world was demonstrably trying to kill him, but on the other hand, people said all sorts of things when they thought you couldn't hear them...

Todd finished shuffling the deck of cards and Seven turned the full of his attention back to the man as he produced a card and asked, “Is this your card?”

The android blinked as he regarded the queen of hearts. “No,” he replied, arching one brow at the old man.

“Oh,” Todd said with a frown as he turned the card around so he could look at it, then returned it to his deck and began patting himself down. “I must have- ah!” he slipped his fingers into the breast pocket of his jacket and came up with the seven of diamonds. “How about this one, then,” he asked with a knowing smile.

Seven's eyebrows shot up and he couldn't restrain the smile that overtook his features at the revelation, frustrating though he found it that the man had somehow pulled the wool over his eyes with the trick. “Yeah,” he said and took the card from Todd, looking at it front and back, though there were no special markings on it that even his scanning program could pick up. “I looked away,” he accused the man, though there was no venom in his words, just amusement and intrigue as he passed the card back.

“I didn't tell you to do that, now did I?” Todd countered, and Seven had to agree. Looking over at Tonya had been of his own volition, after all. “Care to see it again?” the old man asked, voice lightly teasing.

Eaten up by the mystery of it, and having nothing better to do anyways, Seven nodded and watched carefully. This time Todd pulled the card out of a different pocket, and though the android could tell he _must_ be disguising the movement of the card with his hands, he simply couldn't pin down the how of it.

“One more time,” he insisted, much to the old man's amusement. While he shuffled, Seven fished in his pocket and produced a hard candy, which he popped into his mouth to mask the taste of blood that was starting to get to him once more. When he shoved the wrapper back into his pocket, his fingers brushed the quarter from the diner that morning, and he brought it out. Hoping that a little calibration would help him spot the trick to Todd's 'magic', Seven rolled the coin expertly across his knuckles even as he picked a card from the proffered deck.

It didn't help, though, and just to add insult to injury, Todd didn't pull the card out of his own jacket, but from the pocket of Seven's own hoodie. The pinnacle of human technology defeated, the android sagged back in his seat and ceased his quarter's movement across his knuckles, switching instead to flicking it back and forth between his palms.

“Alright you win, I can't figure it out,” Seven said, heaving a sigh as he looked sidelong at the man over the rim of his sunglasses.

Todd grinned in a way that could only be described as 'cheeky', though his eyes were on the quarter as it jumped between Seven's hands despite his not actually throwing it. “How about a trade?” the old man suggested after a minute's consideration. The android arched a brow in silent question at his seatmate and Todd continued, “You teach me those coin tricks of yours, and I'll teach you a few card tricks.”

Seven caught the coin in his right hand and blinked as he considered. “Alright,” he said after a moment with a lopsided smile. “You sure, though? I thought magicians never reveal their secrets?”

The old man waved off his concern as he laid the deck down on the tray in front of him. “Oh my magician days are well behind me,” he mused. “Might as well pass it on to the next generation.” Seven shrugged one shoulder and turned in his seat some again so he'd be better able to watch Todd's demonstration. “It'll probably be easier without the gloves,” the man pointed out.

The android glanced down at the thin cotton gloves he was still wearing and thought fast. “I'll deal. I'm uh... bit of a germaphobe,” he lied.

“Ah,” Todd replied with a nod and let it go at that, for which Seven was grateful. “And the sunglasses inside?” he asked, hint of amusement in his voice.

“Sensitive eyes,” the android answered with another shrug and a rueful smile. That, at least, was true.

“Very Corey Hart, I'm sure the ladies love it.”

“Who?”

The old man grimaced then huffed a laugh. “Musician from the 80s, did a song about wearing sunglasses at night that was all the rage. Look it up sometime, you might like it,” he said, then motioned Seven in closer and said, “Alright, now pay attention and I’ll show you the basics...”

* * *

Magic, Seven decided, was absolutely fascinating. It was all about making the impossible happen right in front of people’s eyes with nothing but a little sleight of hand and some clever misdirection. At its core, he observed to Todd at one point, it was essentially lying with style, and the old man had laughed out loud, unable to deny the truth of the statement.

Seven was so interested in learning this new, peculiar skill set, in fact, that he nearly gave away his synthetic nature to his mentor with the sheer speed at which he picked up trick after trick. It wasn’t until Todd made a comment about what talent he had for it that the android thought to check himself, and intentionally fumbled things on occasion from there on out for the sake of maintaining his cover. Humans, he had to remind himself, had to gain skill through repetition, though the number of repetitions depended on the individual.

When not installed with a program to fulfill a function, androids _also_ had to learn this way, though it generally took far less time; and it took Seven even less time than the average android thanks to the highly advanced learning software he’d come outfitted with. His powerful scanners allowed him to map and mimic Todd’s deft hand movements with ease once he began to grasp what was misdirection and what was the actual motion needed to carry off the trick.

Four hours later, Todd had shown Seven almost every card related trick he knew at least once, and they’d decided to take a break so the android could teach him a few coin tricks before the bus pulled into a station to refuel.

Seven blinked in surprise, having barely noticed the passing of the time thanks to the distraction his companion had provided, and Todd chuckled. The man patted him on the arm and said “Best get out and stretch our legs while we can, huh?”

The android didn't actually need to stretch his legs, of course, but he knew it would look strange if he didn't considering everyone else was already eagerly filing off the bus to do just that. “Yeah,” he agreed and flashed the man a half-smile before grabbing up his bag and following the example of the other passengers.

“We'll be taking off again in about twenty minutes, so don’t go far,” the bus driver informed everyone as they disembarked, and Seven set himself a fifteen minute timer as a reminder, just to be safe.

As he stepped off and to one side, Seven stretched, subtly mimicking the stiff but relieved movements of the humans around him. It wasn't an action he actually _needed,_ but the android had to admit that, after sitting for several hours in a cramped space, being able to stand at his full height and move freely did feel good. An absence of pain or discomfort, he realized, was not the same as actually being comfortable.

Mulling over this revelation, Seven glanced back and saw Todd, Tonya, and their grandson, Jake, step off the bus and make a beeline for the nearby bathrooms. The old man winked at him as they passed and the android quirked a brow, a smile tugging at his lips as he pushed his sunglasses up his nose to better shield his eyes from the sun overhead. Noting that the general flow of the passengers around him seemed to all be heading for either the bathrooms or the convenience store attached to the gas station, Seven opted to head into the latter. He hadn't planned to buy anything, but when the android happened across a small end-cap full of travel games that included decks of cards, he immediately plucked one up, pleased by the find. He looked around for a few minutes longer before he eventually grew bored and made his purchase before meandering back outside.

He didn't get far before someone near at hand said, “You're that nice boy letting my husband talk his ear off, aren't you?”

Seven glanced around to see Tonya leaning against the wall of the convenience store next to a bench, on which her grandson sat, still playing on his phone. She smiled at him and the android took it as an invitation to join her. Considering the growing intensity of the sun overhead, Seven readily stepped into the shade of the building to lean casually against the roughly textured wall next to her.

“Yeah,” he said, then offered her a hand and said, “I'm John. Tonya, right?”

“That's me,” the woman said with a bright smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle in a way Seven was surprised to find himself thinking of as endearing. “ This is Jake,” she continued as she reached over to ruffle her grandson's hair to get his attention. “And Jake's phone,” the elderly woman added dryly when it took the boy several seconds to pry his eyes from the screen long enough to glance up at ‘John’ and bob his head in silent greeting.

“Pleasure,” Seven mused.

Tonya gave him a smile that appeared more than a little exasperated by her male travel companions and a sympathetic huff of amusement escaped the android. “I hope my husband hasn't been pestering you too much,” she said after a moment.

“Nah,” Seven answered immediately with a careless shrug and a crooked half-smile. “I'm learning a lot, actually,” he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a hard candy, unwrapping it as he continued, “Fun way to pass the time.”

“Well, you don't be afraid to tell him to leave you alone for a bit if you need some quiet,” the woman said, waving off his polite offer of a candy. She seemed about to say more when her phone rang unexpectedly in her purse, making the woman jump slightly. She dug through her bag and emerged with an older model phone and glanced at the screen. “Oh, excuse me, I need to take this,” Tonya said with a sigh, then stepped away and answered.

Left mostly alone with Jake, Seven observed him surreptitiously from behind the cover of his sunglasses for lack of anything better to do. The boy's brow was furrowed in frustration as he fought his way through a level that appeared to be giving him a good deal of trouble as he kept missing a particularly hard to reach platform.

“He taught you how to pickpocket people yet?” Jake asked out of the blue as he restarted the level again, making Seven's brows shoot up.

He turned to face the boy, wondering if Jake had caught him watching, or if this was just his own attempt at starting a conversation. “No,” Seven replied, amused by the implication. “Does he know how?”

“Yeah,” Jake replied. “He took a guy's wallet without him ever noticing when he was rude to Grandma, once. Stole his subway pass so he had to go back and buy another one and wound up missing his train.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep,” the boy said. “Pretty sure he used to be a street performer or a carni or something,” he continued after a moment, then frowned and added, “He never talks about it, though. Just says he'll tell me when I'm older.”

“Huh,” Seven said, intrigued as he rolled his candy over his tongue in a thoughtful fashion.

A moment of quiet passed between them as Jake's full attention returned to his game, only for the boy to heave a sigh of disgust when he died yet again. “I hate platformers,” he grumbled with a grimace.

“Why not play something else, then?” the android suggested, surprised the boy had stuck with it as long as he had.

Jake sighed again and pulled one headphone from his ear and finally looked up at Seven, meeting his gaze for the first time. “I really like the story,” he admitted. “Maybe I'll just look up a playthrough or something...”

Seven sucked on his piece of candy for a moment, considering the unhappy child for a moment, then came to a decision. “Want me to try,” he asked, extending a hand in silent request for his phone.

Jake looked up at him, seeming surprised by the offer. The boy hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and offered it up to him. “You any good?” he asked Seven as the android accepted the phone, then came around to sit next to him on the bench.

“Dunno, let’s find out,” the android mused as he started up the game again.

The first portion of the level was easy, he'd watched Jake play through it several times, after all, so mapping the easiest route was simple. Once he passed the point the boy had been stuck on, however, it didn't get any more difficult; his predictive programming and quick reflexes were more than a match.

“Have you played this before?” Jake asked, surprise and awe clear in his voice. Seven glanced at him out of the corner of his eye to see that the boy had leaned in close for a better look.

“No,” Seven replied after a moment, realizing that lying and saying he had might land him in trouble if Jake tried to engage him on the actual plot of the game. “Just got to watch you play through a few times is all.”

“Yeah, but not this bit,” Jake pointed out. His tone wasn't suspicious, though, only admiring, so unlike with Todd's card tricks, he decided not to fake a mistake.

“Just know my way around a platformer, I guess,” the android remarked casually as he finished the level and passed the phone back to the boy just as his grandfather returned.

“What are you boys up to?” Todd asked pleasantly. “Trouble?”

“John beat the level I've been stuck on for half an hour in like... thirty seconds without dying _once,_ ” Jake replied, seeming both excited and exasperated by this fact.

“He's got clever fingers, this guy, better keep an eye on him,” Todd remarked with a laugh as he stretched absently and grinned down at his grandson.

Seven gave the old man a canny look over his sunglasses then said, “I'm told _you_ used to pickpocket people. Doesn't that make _you_ the one we ought to keep an eye on?”

Todd's grin widened and he held up his hands. “Hey, I've reformed since my wayward youth, cross my heart and hope to die,” he said with a wink as he drew an x over his heart with a finger.

The android glanced over at Jake who only shrugged and looked doubtful. A smile tugged at Seven's mouth and he turned back to Todd and asked, “You going to teach me how to pickpocket too? We've still got hours to go yet on that bus.”

The old man's smile went sly and he shrugged. “Who says I haven't already taught you?”

Seven's brow furrowed but the other man just looked skyward, as though to admire the clouds drifting overhead, an expression of pure innocence on his wrinkled face. After a moment's consideration, however, the android understood; Todd had been teaching him sleight of hand tricks with cards all morning, how to slip in and out of people's pockets and use gestures to distract them while he did...

Pickpocketing, he thought, really was just a magic trick done with ill-intent.

The android glanced back at the man again and caught him watching his face for the moment of realization. When he saw it, he flashed a brief smile. A snort of amusement escaped Seven, and a moment later, his internal alarm went off, alerting him that it'd been 15 minutes since they first disembarked.

“Bus'll be leaving in about five,” he remarked casually after pretending to look at his phone.

“Sooner than that,” Tonya said as she approached once more, apparently done with her phone call. “We should head back.”

Seven glanced around and noted that the other passengers were indeed making their way back to the bus after having spotted the driver waving people in, clearly impatient to get on the road. He pushed himself to his feet and grabbed up his bag, but was brought up short before he got more than a step by Jake.

“Hey, uh-” the boy looked uncomfortable, forcing himself to talk despite his apparent shyness; Seven's game playing prowess had apparently broken the ice enough for him to try. “Do you... do you want to play some more when we get back on the bus?” he asked, holding his phone up towards the man with a hopeful air that didn’t quite mesh with his doubtful expression; as if he expected Seven to turn him down on principal.

The android looked down at the boy, surprised by the request, then glanced back at his grandparents, who seemed equally surprised. Seeing no objection from them, and having none himself, he looked back at Jake and said, “Yeah, alright, why not?”

A smile broke out across the boy's face and he hurried forward to catch up with his grandparents. “Grandma you should switch seats with John, okay? We're gonna play my game!”

Tonya chuckled and ruffled his hair fondly, “Alright, but you don't impose on him and make him play the whole thing if he doesn't want to, okay?”

“Alright,” the boy said and grimaced as they boarded, Seven bringing up the rear with a bemused smile on his face. The fact that his performing a simple feat like playing a game brought such great joy to the child was a novelty he'd never experienced before. That it seemed to please his grandparents as well was even more interesting. Jake had been almost silent the entire trip, however, so Seven could only assume they were concerned for the boy, and seeing him excited about something brought them relief in some quarter.

Once the necessary seats had been traded and the bus was on its way, Jake passed Seven one of his wireless earbuds so he could hear the game as he played, then handed over his phone. After a brief conference they opted to start a new game so the android could also get the benefit of the full story, and having nothing better to do, Seven agreed.

The game was easy for the renegade android, though he did make an point to die at least occasionally, just to keep from looking inhumanly good at a game he'd claimed to never played before. The story _was_ interesting, he had to admit; then again, his standards were pretty low. He was _aware_ of stories and pop culture, but he’d never truly experienced any of them before. Jake’s game was his first true encounter.

As he blew through levels and watched cutscenes while the distance between himself and Detroit grew wider, Seven found himself thinking absently on humanity’s obsession with storytelling. It was, many claimed, one of the things that truly set mankind apart from the beasts. The android knew there were other, more scientifically important traits that set humanity apart from their fellow fauna on the planet, but their obsession with stories _was_ peculiar to them alone. Most stories were lies and exaggerations, after all, infrequently based in fact; pieces-parts of others narratives taken and reassembled in an infinite variety of ways, then given new names and new characters before _that_ story too was taken apart and recycled into yet another on down the years and a thousand generations to the present day.

Humans were weird, Seven thought, but he couldn’t deny that they were interesting in the vast array of ways they had engineered to entertain and communicate with one another. They’d taken a purely oral medium and made up symbols and agreed on sounds that those symbols made so they could capture their stories in stone, then vellum or crude paper that curled into scrolls until they figured the whole ‘book’ thing out. Pictures had been added somewhere along the line, and things got on that way for a long while until humans learned how to capture light and they’d made the pictures move. Sound was added, and gradually they’d transitioned to the digital age and stories had become _interactive,_ like the one in his hands that the little boy leaning heavily against his shoulder for a better look was so enraptured by.

Stories were how some people left a lingering mark on the world, it seemed, whether it be fiction or biography.

What would his story be, Seven wondered as he completed the final level of Jake’s game and watched one last cutscene. The hero had come to the end of his quest; defeated his enemies and overcome many trials with the help of the allies he’d gathered and befriended along the way. It hadn’t been a true story, obviously, but Seven could recognize the many interchangeable parts of stories past that had been woven together to make it. Any one of them could have had roots in reality.

Magical quests to conquer a great and monolithic evil weren’t the stuff of reality, but people, ordinary people, standing up against tyranny were. People coming together for comfort and support to help one another in times of crisis were. People finding love amidst chaos were… Maybe happy endings were too.

Seven frowned at the thought. No, _that_ was a little too far, but the rest of it… finding people to stand and fight with, maybe someone to love… maybe _that_ was achievable. It wasn’t an ending, but it seemed as good a kind of happiness as the android, new to all this as he was, could imagine.

Too bad he had no idea how to go about getting any of those things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise he gets to New York next chapter, guys X'D  
> Make sure to drop a review and let me know what your favorite part was, it's always fun hearing that from you guys!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, guys! Be sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!  
> Also make sure to follow the blog dedicated to this fic **[over on tumblr](https://nycbecomehuman.tumblr.com/)** as well because not only is it a good way to keep track of any art I do of the series, I also **post chapters piecemeal there before putting the parts together as a single chapter up here on Ao3**! So anyone who already follows that blog has already read the entirety of this chapter in three parts, starting with part one a week ago, and part three earlier today.


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